How to Get Your Art Noticed Online: Boosting Your Presence

You have been practicing a lot and sharing your art online like crazy these past few months. You’ve also been getting good reviews from friends and family, but why isn’t your art getting noticed by other people? Why aren’t your Instagram followers growing?

On the other hand, you’re following this account who’s only sharing works that aren’t even theirs, but it’s got a couple of million followers already. Frustrating, right? Well, don’t worry, because today, we will teach you how to get your art noticed online.

We will not just share with you some general tips, but we will also provide you with some helpful platform-specific guides, particularly on deviantART, Instagram, and YouTube.

How to Get Your Art Noticed Online

We’ll give you general tips, as well as tips for certain platforms so that you can get your art noticed online.

General Tips

These tips will help you get noticed anywhere online, such as in Google:

1. Put up a Website

Having a website that will serve as your portfolio and blog is the first thing you want to do to give your art a proper venue to get viewed and noticed. Having a well-designed website will also show your dedication as a serious up and coming artist.

2. Share Your Process Through Blogs

Give your followers a sneak peek into your creative process by posting about them on your website. These types of blogs are very interesting and in-demand right now, not to mention that they are also very Instagrammable. This will also give your audience a reason to drop by your website regularly and view your new work.

3. Create a Newsletter Subscription

Some people still need that extra push or a gentle reminder to come back and visit your website even if they enjoyed what they saw the last time they were there. Create and send out a newsletter each time you have fresh content; they will receive these reminders through their email.

Here’s a pro tip: give your online audience a reason to sign up for your newsletter. Even if it’s just getting dibs on the first look of your latest works, or you’re going to offer them a free downloadable art print, it doesn’t matter. As long as the reason is compelling enough for anyone to leave an email address, then that would be good.

4. Be More Social

Now that you have an efficiently well-oiled website that has regular content with an email list that’s steadily growing, the next thing you should do is to be more social. That could mean two things: first, you should talk to your audience more. If someone posted a comment on a blog entry, take your time to answer it.

If there’s a way to make your emails more personal, do that. If your viewers have some questions, create a blog post to address their queries. Listen to your audience, answer back, and be friendly.

The second meaning is to put up social media accounts. Another main reason you’re probably not getting noticed is that they can’t find you. You’re not in the places where your target art fans are hanging out. So be there.

Create all those accounts and utilize them all to give your art more online exposure. Give your potential art fans a lot of methods to discover and meet you.

5. Join an Online Art Community

Still, in relation to the previous tip, join an active online art community like our acrylic pouring Facebook group. We have over 90,000 members with hundreds of posts each day. It’s extremely active and an incredible community!

Don’t just be a passive member, be an active one. The most efficient investment to establish your online reputation as an artist is your time.

Take the time to juggle all these online arenas. Schedule them for better time management. But remember, these are real people! Treat other members as individuals and you’ll build real connections that have value – not just another follower.

6. Enter an Art Competition or Event

Finally, you’ll probably hear about a competition or two in those platforms and communities that you have joined. Prove your worth as an artist and join those competitions. We recently started a photo contest that’s had over 10,000 pageviews in the last couple weeks and will have other events posted on our events page.  So check it out and see what we have going on today!

You don’t really have to win. What you want is to get noticed. However, those who do win get the most exposure, so do your best!

Tips for Specific Platforms

Now, following the tips we have shared with you above is already enough to improve your online presence. That said, we understand that there are certain platforms that you might want to prioritize and get more views on.

Hence, we will share with you our quick guides for getting noticed on deviantART, Instagram, and YouTube. Let’s go!

How to Get Noticed on DeviantArt

Image Source: DeviantArt 

As we mentioned above, it’s always a great idea to join an online art community and more so, if it’s international. Well, of all the artist platforms online, though, our favorite has got to be deviantART. It’s where most of the biggest names in art online started, and it’s a great and supportive environment to get proper criticism and improve your art.

The problem is, how do you get your art noticed in a world already filled with excellent work? Here are some tried-and-tested tips:

1. Submit Your Best Works Consistently

The safest schedule is to upload at least one new work every week. Curate the works you would post, as well. Don’t just post everything for the sake of posting. Choose your best pieces.

Did you suddenly have a week of inspiration, and now you have 20 new works to post? That’s great, but don’t change your post volume much and upload everything all in one go. It’s better to have a content supply enough to last you a few months than posting 20 works today and then suddenly nothing for the next two months.

2. Maximize Participation

Participating in forums is one of the most efficient ways to meet people on deviantART. As we mentioned, being friendly goes a long way. Aside from the forums, you should also take your time to answer the comments on your posts and share journal entries.

3. Always Keep on Improving

As a community of artists, the people on deviantART really put a great deal of attention to those they see improving. After all, your audience themselves will provide you with constructive criticism to apply to your work. Hence, sift through them, see what applies, and try them out.

To give back to the community, don’t forget to browse and view others’ works and leave them some friendly reviews and suggestions, as well.

4. Make Your Page More Professional

Utilize the widgets that deviantART provides to improve the content on your page. If you think that they don’t apply to you, then remove them.

Don’t leave empty widgets hanging around. Give your page air of professionalism and show people how serious you are. In this way, they’ll also start treating you more seriously.

How to Get Noticed on Instagram

Image Source: Instagram

Aside from deviantART, another great platform to get noticed as an artist is on Instagram. Here’s a quick guide that you can follow:

1. Improve Your Profile

Just as how we’ve improved your page on deviantART, we should do the same with your Instagram profile. Unlike with deviantART, though, you only have very limited space on Instagram.

The best way to make your profile talk is still through the images you post there. So, you need to be smart.

• Choose a handle or username that’s easy to remember.
• Select a thumbnail that resonates with your style, preferably one out of your best works; just know that it would be displayed really tiny.
• Write a short and witty, yet relevant and complete bio. You can make use of emojis if you’re really running out of space.
• Don’t forget to leave the link to your website as well! That’s very important.

2. Follow the Right People and React to the Right Posts

Here’s the thing: Instagram uses your activity to track the profiles and posts relevant to your own. This is the same mechanics they use for their “Suggest People” feature. Hence, if you want your results to show up in relevant profiles and post searches, then we suggest using your account wisely.

Also, create a separate personal account for your carefree browsing.

3. Connect Your Contacts

Do you have contacts from other platforms that you think will enjoy following your content on Insta? Then track them down and let them know you’re here. In fact, why not follow them to make them more aware of your new account.

4. Post Consistently

Again, you also need to post regularly on Instagram. A post or two a day is the “sweet spot”. As for the “sweet times”, post in the morning, around 8AM or 9AM, or in the afternoon, around 5PM. Try to curate your content to have a harmonious aesthetic as much as you can.

5. Don’t Forget the Hashtags!

Labeling your posts with relevant hashtags is the best way to allow people to find your posts easily. Don’t overwhelm your actual post with your hashtags, though. Here’s a pro tip: post your hashtags separately by commenting on them instead.

How to Get Noticed on YouTube

Source: Youtube

How are you doing at deviantART and Instagram so far? Here’s the last platform: YouTube. You might be thinking, “Why, YouTube?”.

First of all, it’s one of the biggest search platforms in the entire internet. Second, and more importantly, we understand that there are artists whose mediums, methods, and works won’t display well on still images. Instead, they will look way better when presented in a video format. If that’s your case, then here are some tips on how to get noticed on YouTube:

1. Pick the Perfect Name and Niche for Your Channel

For the name, you’d want to match this to the social media accounts you have established so far. As for the niche, just make sure that it matches your art style and methods.

Remember, you will create content around this niche. This is what your audience will subscribe to and what they are expecting to see in later videos. For instance, if your chosen niche is calligraphy, then there’s no sense in posting a video about make-up or furniture unless you can relate them to calligraphy.

2. Post Content Consistently

Give your audience a posting schedule that they can easily remember and follow. Plan the timing of posting according to the perceived schedule of your target audience. For instance, if you want to target students, then you don’t want to post on a school night. You would get better views posting on the weekend.

Don’t leave your audience hanging, as well. Make sure that there are always new posts to watch and look forward to.

3. Use Tags

Just like Instagram, you can also utilize proper tagging to help your potential audience find your content easier.

4. Never Use Copyrighted Material

It’s easy to overlook the use of copyrighted material when making videos. After all, who knew that YouTube will hear the music your wife is playing in the kitchen when you didn’t even notice it during filming? Just be extra careful, and you’ll be alright.

5. Interact With Your Community

Finally, don’t forget to socialize. Form new contacts. Talk directly to your subscribers. Give back to them by hosting giveaways. Respond to their comments.

Don’t forget that your viewers are not the only part of the YouTube community, as well; other channels, too. Hence, make friends with them, or better yet, you can plan a collaboration with them!

6. Collaborate

You won’t start with an audience already, but there are other YouTubers who already have followers. You can collaborate with them and they will introduce you to their audience. For us at acrylicpouring.com we have over 60k YouTube subscribers. If an artist is willing to create a quality YouTube video for us we’re willing to post it on our account and link to their YouTube channel as well. Just go to our Become A Contributor page to fill out an application.

Final Words

We hope that you enjoyed and found most of our tips helpful for you as an artist forging their new adventure online.

If we want you to take away one tip from, it would be this: the best way to get your art discovered is to make sure that they see your work in its best condition. So, remember to do the following:

• Invest in honing the skill of art photography.
• Invest in better equipment, may that be for lighting, filming, editing, or simply making art.
• Know how to show the best angle of your piece. In this way, your audience will get to see your work for what it actually is: a unique and stunning piece that deserves attention.

That’s how to get your art noticed online!

For more tips on deciding which social media platform is best for you, read our How to Choose Your Social Media Selling Platform.